Neglected baby's death poses a challenge for all of us

Friday

Feb 22, 2008 at 12:01 AMFeb 22, 2008 at 9:01 PM

Benjamin Sargent's "loving" parents, who are charged with his murder, may be beyond our comprehension. The death of an innocent can make us surrender to despair, or fight to make the world a better place.

Phil Luciano

I’ve never read a more cruel irony than this line from the obituary of Benjamin Sargent:

"Benjamin is survived by his loving parents."

They would be Tracy D. Hermann, 21, and James E. Sargent, 23, both of 3012 W. Proctor St. They were charged with first-degree murder Wednesday for allegedly letting him starve to death over eight days as he sat strapped to a car seat dumped into his crib.

Loving? I can’t fathom an antonym to properly peg them. What they did is beyond comprehension to us, an evil so terrible that words fail to adequately reflect our collective anger and frustration about the senseless death of an innocent.

We can wring our hands and yell at the water cooler and clamor for more justice than the law allows. In the end, though, we can feel so small: the world seems to get worse as we grow powerless.

But neither is true.

The world has always been rife with everyday atrocities — city by city, neighborhood by neighborhood. America was never like "Happy Days." Children and adults were murdered and abused and raped — often by kin, just like now. But, for space reasons, local papers couldn’t include all of those stories from all over the place.

But now, via the Internet and cable TV, we have a God’s-eye view of the world. And it can be a repugnant place.

If we let it.

That’s where our power comes in. We can do something. We can fight.

You might not want to see it, but there’s a war waging every day. You can look at if from a spiritual perspective: good trying to triumph over evil. Or you can look at it from a secular perspective: decent people trying to stay in control in an imperfect world.

Either way, it’s a battle. The question is, do you choose to engage?

You can sit on the sidelines. You can wail aloud that Benjamin Sargent’s parents should suffer the same fate as he, or hang from a public gallows.

But even then, much of this world would remain in darkness. We can lock up more bad people, yet bad things will keep happening to more Benjamin Sargents.

Maybe they don’t all die. Maybe they wallow in squalor. Maybe they get mistreated. Maybe they get abused. But the cycle continues. They grow up to do bad things — not just to their own kids, but to our families and rest of the world.

For one week, I wish the public could see all of the Peoria police reports. You’d likely be aghast at the endless mayhem and despair and brutality and hopelessness in those reports. Peoria, along with every other city, traffics in evil every day. Most of us just don’t see it.

Certainly, it’s not our fault that Benjamin Sargent died. But it is our fault if we don’t try to stop this madness.

If you think your role on this earth is to tend only to your own needs, that’s your right. But please spare us your sanctimonious griping if the world never gets any better.

And don’t rely on the government to fix things. Problems are too entrenched. People need to be changed inside. People need to be changed by people.

There are a slew of agencies that need your help. Or, you can just mutter that the Benjamin Sargents aren’t your problem.

It’s your choice. But just remember, it’s also your world. You have a stake and ownership here. How do you want your world to be?

Phil Luciano is a columnist with the Peoria Journal Star. He can be reached at pluciano@pjstar.com.

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